zombies of widgeroo – chapter twelve

chapter twelve – reflections of evil (hi, damon), binding rituals, curses, compulsions and hints of chaos.

she waited for me on the beach, idly building castles in the sand.

as i stepped from the house, she waved and i waited a moment before joining her.

i told her i was going to widgeroo.

“when i cursed you,” she said. “i knew you could not go there. you’d better pray they kill you, whatever you are. you’d better pray to whatever god you serve.”

“i serve no god,” i said, automatically it seemed.

“i serve no god,” i told jubei as he told me to pray to whatever god i served.

“well, invent one,” he sneered. “you’ll need a glimmer of hope before i’m done with you.”

“i brought the merchantkings to their knees for you. i crushed the last of the managers even as they scurried about like rats on this planet, eager for a bolthole. they found no mercy at my hands, not because i would not give it, but because you ordered them none. i summoned the arcane powers of the stock exchange. i revealed to you the secret workings of prophetic spending. you have used my power to bring the world to the very brink of chaos, and now you quarrel over a vision you could never possess even when i die.”

“you summoned her for me,” he hissed. “she is mine!”

“she belongs to no being. not to you, and not to me. she was never mine to give. i have told you this before.”

“no matter what you say, you know she was mine by right. by right, damn you! you should have given her to me when i demanded it.”

“there is no right,” i told him, smiling through cracked teeth. “there is only higher credit limits.”

coogs, whispering. “come on, mate. just give her to him. i’ve seen you bind ceos. surely you can bind a little spirit for him. what does it matter? plenty more spirits in the netherworld, mate.”

i looked up into his bored expression. my body felt like at any moment it would just fall apart. like the threads binding the bones together would just quit gripping calcium and instead choose to feel the relief of release.

“it matters,” i told him.

so he hit me.

again.

i thought there was music, playing in my ears to distract me from the pain, but it was just the sound of jubei giggling like a madman as the world around me turned red.

the demonette toyed with sand. she cupped it and let the grains drain through her fingers.

“i saw jood,” i told her.

skinny stopped playing with the sand and looked out over the ocean. “i haven’t told anyone what you did to me. at first, i was so proud. i was going to hook a mage. possibly an arch-mage. how was i to know you were more than that? but i knew if i told anyone, they’d take you away from me. maybe send a greater demonette instead. you were my chance to go one level higher,” she sighed, flinging the last bits of sand away. “where was she?”

“in a bed. she’d been cut open. i used her blood to escape.”

“who did it?”

“i don’t know. coogs said it was an accident. how did you know her?”

“we were in the mines together. her sister, meegan, summoned me. they were my first souls. i saved meegan from the whips, alright. she died from plague, though. she hadn’t asked to be spared from disease, you see. or even to be healed. just to be left alone,” she wiped her eyes, and tried to hide the gesture. i pretended not to notice. “humans are so unspecific.”

i squatted beside her. “what happened to jood?’

“she used meegan’s spells to summon me. asked me to bring meegan back, but i couldn’t. her soul had moved on through processing. i explained this. jood accepted. then asked if i could help keep her safe from pain. i promised. i can’t see why she was cut open! i gave her insurances. i was punished for it, but i thought i owed her. meegan – i could have stopped that, but it was my first job. i didn’t think. i was so busy trying to tie her into a contract.”

“it’s hardly your fault, and insurances aren’t exactly all-powerful. they’re good against most things, but not all.”

“they’re supposed to be worthwhile, though. not fucking fragile!”

i touched her hand and she flinched. “insurances are easy to negate. they’re just a contract, and all contracts can be voided, if you know how.”

“they shouldn’t be.”

“i know,” i said. this time i took her hand. she let me. “there’s something i have to tell you. i know you cursed me good. you made it so the only place i could safely remove the curse is in widgeroo.”

“yes.”

“there’s ways to remove the curse.”

“i know.”

“you know there’s a way to remove it here?”

“i didn’t when i cursed you. but i’ve since been told.”

“you know what it would do to you?”

she shuddered.

the waves shouldered the shore.

solomon never bathed, except in the ocean.

he summoned demons and forced them into doing his bidding. he was an expert on demonology. his books sold out with each printing.

i never bought any, because i already knew the spells.

but they did have pretty pictures in them.

he’d told me about demon curses.

“they’re not like normal curses. most are fucking hard to break. demon curses, though. well, they’re harder than that, but in some ways they’re simpler. but it’s vital to get the physical name of the demon first. that’s why i always cast a spell of augury first. it identifies the physical name, future past and present. good trick that. wanna see how it’s done?”

i did.

“well, then. watch this,” and he summoned a demon, cast his spell, accepted the curse, then used the demon’s name to remove his curse.

it peeled away from him like a scab.

and the demon screamed.

and screamed.

i shuddered at memory of the sound.

skinny wiped her eyes again. “there used to be creatures in that ocean, the size of which could dwarf small islands. huge, they were.”

“i heard.”

“these humans have killed them all. and so many other things. i walked this land here when there used to be trees. trees which grew so high you could climb all day and never reach the top. i remember many things.”

“i would say you do.”

we sat there, holding hands as the sun consumed the sky.

“i thought coogs would kill you.”

“you meddled with my spells? the ones from black rock?”

she nodded.

“i wondered what that was,” i chuckled. “well, i have to thank you. i’m not sure where i would’ve ended up without you.”

“i shouldn’t have interfered, then.”

“probably not. but at least we were here.”

she smiled, then, her hair trembling in the breeze. i licked my lips and tasted salt. dead salt.

“i’d rather be somewhere else,” she said.

i let her hand fall into the sand and stretched out on my back to look up at the sky. “they won’t find out from me.”

“sorry?”

“i’m not in the habit of telling the truth to demons. so they won’t find out from me,” i closed my eyes. “about how easily i bound you. although i wouldn’t feel so bad about it if i were you. not even had you brought down the kingdom of hell to hold my soul in place would you have been able to bind me to your will. not even with lucifer himself leading the way.”
“you presume much,” she growled, defensively. “he is more powerful than you dare to contemplate!”

i turned my head and opened my eyes. her face was a mix of contempt and fear. “do you really believe that?”

“i don’t know.”

i laughed, as she unwittingly delivered the first law. “it’s a start.”

she rocked back and forth on her ass, digging her toes into the sand. searching for heat. “how can you so easily dispell signs which have bound your kind for millenia? i was so certain i could hold you. so sure you were human. vampire. mage. something easily defined. but you’re none of those things.”

“i’m no longer sure. coogs has just asked the same thing. but the truth, skinny, is that i don’t know what i am. but i am something.”

“but what is it about you that frustrates me?” she asked. there was no heat in words. “what protects you? there must be something!”

i shrugged. the sand rolling against my back felt delicious. i could almost sink into it and float out among the waves.

but i had too much to do.

there was no time, yet there was all the time in the world.

her insurances were not worth the parchment they were printed on.

not worth the blood spilled to obtain them.

not worth the curse i took.

not worth visiting widgeroo for.

they waited in the mud, waited for me.

waited with their eyes closed, and heads bowed.

“protects me?” i let my breath whistle out between my teeth. there was no point in keeping the secret anymore. not from her. she had no power over me, and anything she could have done to prevent what i had to do, even had she guessed what that might be, was too late. she was powerless, and once she realised this, she would only hate me more. “her name is danaya.”

danaya.

scent of apples on the wind.

rising above the salt.

the demonette was still. “danaya,” she said. “a lover?”

“once.”

“now?”

“does it matter?”

the demontte growled, the sound rolling out from the back of her throat. “of course it fucking matters! everything matters! there is not a single event that doesn’t matter!”

i sat up, looking her in the eyes. they glowed fiercely in the sunlight. her cheeks were flushed, and her lips set in a determined snarl.

“now? now, i wonder. ask me after widgeroo.”

her sharp fingers dug into my neck as she took hold of me.

i began to utter a word of power as her eyes filled with the light of hell. but her own words tumbled across her lips and with shock i realised i was bound.

successfully.

i marvelled at the webs which tunnelled into my body, fastening themselves to every vein, every muscle, every bone.

i tried to speak but couldn’t.

she jumped to her feet, still uttering words of power.

her fingers danced, weaving magics i had never even seen before.

“why have you done this to me?” she screamed, then faced the ocean. “damn you. damn you to hell. and i’ll see you there, too. i will! i will make you pay for this.”

the webs tightened their grip on my body.

i shook within them, struggling to break free.

“stop fighting,” she hissed, throwing herself at me. her hands clutched my face, and she pressed her lips against mine for a brief second, then withdrew. still holding me, she growled, “i have removed your curse. but don’t think for one second that i am removing your obligation to me. you gave me your blood. i will demand what you promised. i will have it! do you hear me?”

i was able to nod.

she grinned, and for the first time i really understood how terribly beautiful she was. i smiled, and she uttered a dispelling word. the webs vanished instantly.

i rubbed my wrists, feeling at a few points where they had penetrated my skin.

“you see, don’t you?” she said. “you thought you knew it all. but you gave me your blood. those little insurances you took were nothing compared to what you gave me. if my masters find out about you, they would cast me into the deepest pit they could find, and even then they would not be satisfied.”

“i know.”

she touched my cheek with a fingernail and the light in her eyes faded. all the rage of hell unleashed retreated back into the shadows.

“i know you now,” she said. “the spell identified you. i know you.”

“who am i?”

“you don’t know?”

“i’ve tried to guess.”

“then i’ll let you find out. ask your protector,” she grinned. “yes. ask her. and when you’ve finished toying with your undead minions grovelling in the mud awaiting your return, then you will return here. to me. you will abandon this danaya. you will come to me. you have this obligation.”

“i know. i’ll be here.”

i wondered then why i had summoned her in the first place. what strange twist had affected me to summon a demonette.

and, what stupidity had possessed me to give her my blood?

the demonette looked down at me with some affection. “don’t feel so bad about it,” she said. “didn’t any of your kind ever tell you to beware of the minions of hell?”

i shrugged. “some of them.”

“you should have listened.”

that was untrue, i thought. i should have used her name, instead.

i could still use her name.

as i walked away, leaving her to build castles of sand, i wondered why i hadn’t noticed before that her eyes were the colour of green apples kissed by sun.

Tags: zombies of widgeroo